


Roadtrip

by enamis



Category: My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
Genre: Adventure, Alternate Universe, Dark, Depopulation Event, Depression, Drama, Found Family, Gen, Human, Humanity, Loneliness, Minotaurs, Nihilism, Other, Post-Apocalypse, Psychology, Sailing, Social Issues, Swearing, griffons, lots of monologuing, magical talking horses, odd friendship, so much swearing, the breakdown of social expectations
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-27
Updated: 2018-02-20
Packaged: 2019-01-09 21:15:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12284547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/enamis/pseuds/enamis
Summary: One day... the time of humans ended. In the blink of an eye every person on planet earth vanished without a trace, only one of many millions to remain, and those that did were turned into the things of both legend and not. One month after the Rapture I awoke no longer a girl but rather a girffon. Alone in a derelict home I set off on a journey that'll take me halfway across the world and further.My name is Dia. And one day, they'll call me the Great Uniter.[Loosely MLP related, Imported from Fimfic, read the notes on CH1]





	1. To Start

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> IMPORTANT
> 
> Long story short I figured I'd import this from Fimfiction. Why, I dont really know. This is a story BASED on a universe created by Starscribe and thier story called The Last Pony on Earth.  
> [ fimfiction.net/story/265629 ]  
> The basic gist of it is that humans suddenly vanished and the few that didn't got turned into MLP ponies and the main characters set off to find out what happened. You don't really need to read Star's story since Roadtrip only partakes in the premise, something you can easily pick up on without much backstory. And hey, it'll be even better for you lot since you don't actually know what happened! 
> 
>    
> In any case, here's the ORIGINAL DESCRIPTION from FimFic:  
> "Baltics: Population 6 million.  
> This can not end well... And neither can my supposed mini-vacation. Like waking up not human wasn't enough, everyone I've ever known and loved are gone and now I'm all alone and three hundred kilometers away from an empty home. Did I mention I'm some weird lion-chicken now? Fun...  
> But no, it doesn't just stop there. When one trek is over it can only signal the beginning of another journey that'll take me halfway across the world. It doesn't help that I can't swim..."  
> [What started as the story equivalent of a survival game took a hard turn into existentialism, the breakdown of the individual without society and the meaning of being good. The philosophy of a selfish, soulless, depressed nihilist that desperately wants to be alone, but not lonely, and the hell that is people assuming they know you better than you do.]
> 
> (Every chapter's going to have an art piece with it)  
> (And since this is a story about Europe and Latvians there are going to be some things that might be a bit off for English speakers, mostly concerning languages. There’s a whole ton of ‘em over here so to simplify things:  
> “Dialogues formatted normally are spoken in English.”  
> “While dialogues in ITALICS will be ‘spoken’ in Latvian.”  
> As for all the other languages, you’ll understand when they come into play.)
> 
>  
> 
> *phew* Enjoy!

 

The only reason I woke up is because my arm had gone numb from the elbow down. It wasn't the first time that'd happened, I had a bad habit of sleeping with my limbs in weird angles so waking up like this was nothing new, just another lazy beginning to a little vacation. When I cracked open my eyes, the first thing that was wrong was the fact that I was on my stomach. I could fall asleep like that, sure, but I could never actually  _sleep_ like that.

The second thing was the fact that I was  _tiny_. When you’ve been the tallest person, period, your entire life, suddenly finding yourself the size of a big dog was… concerning. Well, saying suddenly was a bit of a lie. When I had woken up yesterday, fallen out of my hammock and gone; ‘face, meet floor’ everything just spiraled out of control after that.

And today,  _today_ was the day my desperate hopes of everything that had happened in the last twenty-four hours had been either a dream or some accidental, drug, hallucination-y, nightmare-y induced… nightmare…

 

Basically, what I'm getting at was that I was fucked.

After blinking for about a minute straight to make sure that, yep, I was indeed awake I started the tedious process of moving. My weird, wobbly legs managed to push the front of my body upward and into some kind of clumsy sitting position. Then came my back legs. Why yes, I  _did_ have more than two legs but ya’ know what? I had filled my ‘mental breakdown’ quota yesterday so today was when shit was going to get done.

As unsteady as I was, I got myself into a sort of standing position atop my mattress. My light and teeny body barely even made depressions in the thing while I hobbled in a circle to try and get myself to face the door to the other room. One wobbly leg after the other, like crawling on all fours but with one’s knees bending the wrong way ‘round, I stumbled to the closed door. Reaching up towards the handle I thanked whatever twisted shithead of a god that had done this to me, that he at least let me keep my fingers. Granted they were now one fewer and really, really sharp at the tips but weird thumbs were better than no thumbs.

When I managed to shimmy open the door and  _not_  ram my face into the linoleum again, my senses was assaulted by the stale stench of dust and the absolutely  _wonderful_ pungent aroma of rot. I did a little, involuntary dry heave before I slammed my palm over the top of my beak, where my nostrils were and took a second to calm down. Inching my hand off my face I got myself accustomed to the stench and squinted my eyes to get them adjusted to the low light of the next room.

It was about half the size of my huge-ass bedroom with a stairwell going down to the first floor of my family’s summer home in the far left corner. The wall to my right was the one the massive balcony was attached to and the entire wall had gray curtains pulled across it, stifling what little daylight there still was streaming through the window and glass door. As I quickly stumbled my way around the door to my room that hid my mom’s bed from view a million possibilities ran through my head.

 

An empty bed was none of them.

Her bright blue comforter she always laid over her bed was gone, along with her woolen blanket leaving behind only her orthopedic pillow. My eyes darted around the room but all her other stuff was still there. Her laptop bag, her backpack with her clothes, drying tea (who on earth would steal tea?).

I sighed. I wasn’t going to get anywhere just by standing around so my next course of action was to figure out what the flying fuck I was. And  _if_ I was a flying fuck because of some… interesting anatomic additions I felt on my back.

In the corner facing the stars was a large oak dresser. It had been pretty big back when I had still been a meter eighty but now it seemed like a towering mountain I would have to brave to make it to the mirror up top. After a little brainstorming I pulled out the bottom two drawers and made a stair out of them. After pulling myself up to the very top of the dresser using upper body strength I didn’t knew I possessed I was met with… me…

The first full look at myself after I stopped being human. Staring back at me was something straight out of my history books.

 

A griffon.

 

After steadying my heart and waiting for my brain to catch up with the fact that, yes, it was me looking back from the mirror and I was a goddamn mythological creature. I could finally properly inspect myself.

The first thing I noticed was just how  _bright_  my eyes were. Like, even in the dim light filtering through the thick and dust-clouded curtains covering the small window to the balcony, they looked like they were glowing. I blinked a few times and realized just how dim the room was yet I could see surprisingly well even if the colors around me seemed duller than usual. I had chalked it up to the dust covering  _fucking everything_  but the more I thought about it the more I realized I had probably gained some kind of cat-like vision.

Neat.

What was also neat was that my eyes were bright red. Like something out of a (proper, non-sparkly) vampire movie or something, which was actually pretty cool. I would never admit it to anyone but I had always wanted red eyes, even when I was still a girl. There was just something appealing about that, and for what it was worth, this was the one change I didn’t mind.

Also they were fucking humongous. Like, half my face was made of  _eye_. I foresaw a lot of problems concerning grit in my future.

Continuing downward, my entire head all the way down to my neck and over my chest had feathers. They had a very light pink tint to them and they were insanely small and fluffy but also laid very thick. Perhaps down feathers? But at the same time they seemed pretty resilient and had this sort of stiff, shell-like feel to them which was… weird.

The craziest thing about this part of me was a huge triangle looking mark smack-dab in the middle over my breast. The color was a darker red and matched some of the highlights at the tips of some of my other feathers, but the triangular shape was unmistakable. Oh, and as a side note, it looked like I didn’t have visible ears but I did feel some bumps beneath the fluff so there was that.

I ran my hand through the feathers on my head which were another unique brand of odd. They were longer and bigger and stiffer than the others and had colored tips along with looking like they framed my face. A couple slightly fell in front of my eyes, like my old hairstyle back when I was like thirteen or something did, but not enough to be bothersome. At the back of my head, or at least as far as I could see with only one mirror, they made it look like I had medium length hair.

Absentmindedly I rubbed my weird orangey-brown claws or whatever against the side of my beak. The color was similar enough but the mechanics of my face confused me. I smiled at myself in the mirror and my beak moved into a strange smile, showing off sharp, bright white teeth at the sides but not at the front where it curved downward and into a hard, sharp point. I then made a motion of puckering my lips and my beak did… like lips… but… sharp… dafuq?

_Just don’t think about it._

Why yes, brain I would like to see the rest of me, and not try to understand how my fucking face works! Yep… Tots’…  _Let’s move on shall we?!_

Anyway, inspecting the rest of me was simple. From the neck down I had the build of a lioness with a short, smooth dark red-brown coat instead of skin or feathers or anything like that. I wiggled my butt in the mirror a bit and beside the fact that my thighs felt like they could crush rocks it was overall lion-y enough to sate my curiosity. After some mental struggling I sighed in defeat and lifted up my tail. The thing had a little pink tuft at the end and did a pretty good job of hiding my girl-bits which seemed mostly the same so I very quickly moved on to the most interesting part of my anatomy.

I had motherfucking wings.

They were absolutely  _huge_ , looking to be even longer then my entire body when folded. I wiggled my shoulder blades and watched them shift around, feeling the powerful muscles underneath my skin ripple. It felt like I had another two arms except very weirdly proportion and glued to my back. The feathers were long and tough, mostly the same color as my body with reddish ends, matching my highlights.

After another once-over I had gotten myself familiar enough with my new body to see what the shit was going everywhere else. In a brief moment of stupid cockiness I leaped off the dresser like a cat instead of climbing down like a normal griffon-person and  _oooh boy_  did I regret it.

Ya’ see my plan was to use my inner cat-ness and my new half-cat body to pull off a stunt worthy of a full cat. When my front legs crumpled under my own weight at the end of my jump and I once more rammed my face against the linoleum I realized, I am, in fact, no goddamn cat. Fuck everything.

After laying face-down on the ground in pain for some minutes I wearily unglued myself from the floor and wobbled in the direction in the staircase. Speaking of which, all I can say is fuck ‘modern’ stairs. The first floor seemed a goddamn mile away and the only way down were flimsy, disproportioned, weird, creaky-ass and steep steps that not even my oma had the guts to climb. Yay me.

I spent a solid few minutes trying to think about how I was going to get down without snapping my neck and finally settled on what I dubbed the reverse-four-wheel-drive. Basically, every person in the planet has climbed up the stairs on all fours at least once in their life and if someone says they haven’t they're  _liars_. So that’s what I did but  _backwards_. It was pretty nerve-wracking but after a bit I was safely down on the first floor and breathed a sigh of relief.

Only to remember everything here smelled like literal death. With my hand on my nostrils again I did the three-legged race into the living room, past the small fridge that seemed to be the cause of the aroma and  _leaped_ through the archway. My eyes instantly snapped to the couch-bed thing Oma slept in only for it to be just like my mom’s. Empty, nothing but untouched dust.

There was this horrible, cold, crawling feeling at the very base of my neck and before I even knew it I burst out through the front door onto the wooden deck that thumped under my weight. Our vast lawn had grown out like crazy and would have probably gone way past my human-ankles. Now, however, it felt like it reached up to my elbows.

“ _HELLO?!_ ” I called out, looking over to the house to my right. It belonged to my uncle’s family and at this point I was willing to hug or kiss or I don’t even fucking know, literally any living being.

“ _Hello?!_ ” I called out again, wading through the overgrown grass and around the weed-ridden and wilted flower beds towards the gate that linked our properties. As I got closer I saw that their lawn had grown out just as much as ours and that… didn’t bode well, not at all.

The slide-y-lock on the gate was real effin’ high up and the little rope tied around the top to keep my cousins moronic dog from pushing the gate open and running off through the holes under our fence didn’t help either. I rose up on my back legs and as weird as it felt it was actually pretty alright. I undid the lock and began wiggling the gate back and forth to try and loosen the rope up top.

I finally succeeded and as rewards I fell back and flat on my ass. After grumbling under my breath and shaking all kinds of grass and dirt from myself I stepped into the neighboring yard. There was a very distinct stench of rotting meat in the air but it wasn’t as concentrated as our enclosed little house so I just kind of ignored it. A glance to the side, past the firewood shed and to the little gate that lead to the chicken enclosure gave me a pretty good idea on what was rotting. The strange part was that it looked like something had torn through the frail wire fence and into the enclosure but what…

Before I could even register what was happening everything slowed to a crawl. I could suddenly hear every blade of grass shift under something’s weight, I felt the pants that rang through the air and the ever so faint tremble of the earth. My body sprung to the side, almost on its own as my wings splayed outwards and I hit the paved driveway just as something barreled right through the grass where I had been standing.

Before I could recover, my entire field of view was obscured by something dirty white and scraggly, its hot breath washing over me.

So I did the only thing I could.

I screamed and kicked and trashed like a fucking maniac until I got the thing off of me and got myself up to my feet.

My senses fully returned to me and I got a good look at the attacker. It was pretty small, about two fifths my size with dirty, tangled and matted fur that was stained dark red-brown around its mouth. It looked at me with its beady black little eyes and wagged its tail at me and…

“ _BELLA!_ ” I screeched at the top of my lungs the moment I recognized my cousin’s scraggly mutt. I threw myself around her and began feverishly petting her and rubbing her floppy ears and trying to keep her from licking my face. Somehow, she recognized me even if I barely even recognized myself, but fuck if I was gonna' question it.

“ _Oh Bella, Bella, Bella thank god, thank god I'm not alone._ ” I breathed as I continued petting every single inch of her. After a while we’d both calmed down but I was still left with one horrifying question.

Where did everyone go?

Judging by the dried blood around the mutt’s face and the feathers strewn all across the yard and  _holy shit was that a carcass or a shoe?_  Bella was fine, albeit a bit worse for wear and bit… bony. Really, I was just glad she was alive. I couldn’t say much for anyone or anything else around here.

How long  _had_ it been anyway? The grass, the dust, the rot, the death, what  _happened_? And why was I the only one still here? I scratched Bella behind her ears and just stared off into nothing.

“ _So… what now?_ ” I asked no one.

I cast my look from the overcast skies and across the wilderness that had reclaimed our lots and our land all the way down to the empty fields below and the pines off into the distance. “ _I guess I'm all alone… I mean, I might as well make the most of it, right?_ ”

With renewed vigor I set off to do… a great many things.

My overall plan was simple. Get to Riga, get home, see if there's anyone still left in one of the biggest cities in the Baltics. Now all I had to do was figure out a way to actually  _get_ there.

Time passed in a blur after that point but I distinctly remember leaving Bella to her own devices and heading back up to my room. There, on my laptop and my MP4, both having some serious battery conserving power, I checked the dates and they both read June 19th. I couldn’t check my phone since the battery had died over the apparent  _MONTH_ I was… sleeping…?

Honestly I just rolled with it, I was a fucking griffon and waking up a month after the motherfucking Rapture was just another thing to add to the pile. Speaking of piles, I packed up my laptop and tech and essentials and my plush turtle that I’d love forever and ever, and brought it all down to the first floor. It was difficult but as long as I didn’t actually  _think_ about walking I did fine.

Cleaning out the fridge was horrible, but apparently mythological creatures had a much less horrible gag reflex than old-me. I scrounged up all the food in my house and with a bucket we kept in the bathroom I headed off to my cousin’s house and raided that as well. It was just as barren and dusty and after grabbing all the food and dog-food I may or may not have stolen Tom's Xbox while I was there. Maybe, possibly…

Step two was head to town. It was few kilometers out but I was a person that had walked five miles to school barefoot in the snow uphill both ways, so that was all fine and dandy. Bella trailed behind me the entire way and I was a bit scared she might run off and I’d lose my only friend left in this empty world but she was surprisingly reasonable, especially since she was, ya’ know, an untrained borderline-retarded mutt.

Valka and the entire trip there was just as empty as I pretty much expected. No matter how loud I yelled and sang in all two languages I knew no one answered. It was a bit disheartening but… oh well.

I robbed all three shops we had, mostly canned stuff and drinks but I also took candy and chocolates and as much Sour cream and Onion Pringles as I could get my hands on and loaded all of that up in a shopping cart. I took two bags of dry dog-food kibbles and some random assorted stuff that I figured I could use and at that point I could barely move the fucker so I began pushing that heavy-ass cart uphill back home.

At least Bella kept me company.

By the time I made it to the front gate of our lot I was fucking dead from exhaustion. The sun had gone down two-thirds the way home and predictably, the electricity was out, so not only was it dark as shit it was also pretty fucking spoopy. I kept hearing noises and birds and all that crap. I was a bit concerned because I didn't really know what lived in this area but since we were surrounded by forests on all sides I had a couple of ideas.

I dragged my haul next to my mom’s car in the little shed we used as a garage, just in case it rained and grabbed a big ol’ rawhide bone for Bella, a giant flashlight and a can of peas and a can of corn and left the rest of it. Hopefully nothing was going to eat it while I slept.

As I walked up onto the deck of my home away from home and watched Bella lie down in oma’s upturned chair, gnawing on her treat, I had a sudden idea. I dashed through my moonlit yard and into my cousin’s house and with my flashlight shoved down my goddamn throat (at least that’s how it felt) rummaged through every pocket, checked every countertop and flipped every cushion until I finally found a key to one of the two cars sitting just outside.

I nearly tumbled down the stairs on my way out to their patio and rushed to the cars. It wasn’t the first one but the second one’s doors opened with a click that was like music to my ears. I threw myself into the driver’s seat and rammed the damned key into the ignition. I felt like a complete and utter moron for not thinking of this before and I could have very well pissed myself in excitement as I turned the key.

 

Only for the car to give a few weak sputters and stay dead.

 

And just like that the entire day’s exhaustions rushed to meet me in one giant explosion of misery and I slammed my head against the steering wheel.

 

_Hard._

Again.

Again.

Again.

Again.

 

I didn’t even realized the fluid dripping onto my hands were my tears until I felt Bella lick them away. The dumb dog pushed into the car with me and wrapped her warm body against me and just stayed there. If anything, it was just an invitation to continue bawling.

And so I did. I cried for my Mom and Oma. I cried for my cousin and his sister and his family, even if we never really got along. I cried for the librarian that always smiled at me when I used their free Wi-Fi. I cried for my other cousin, the teacher and her mother. I cried for the city I that held my childhood and I cried for all that once lived here.

And I cried for myself.

I cried for the empty world I was left in.

And I cried myself to sleep in a dead car that had been the last straw.

 

 

 

**o.O.o**


	2. Homeward Bound

Ya’ know… there’s one thing I never really appreciated about Latvia before the entire ‘End of the World’ thing.

Hills.

Man, I used to bitch about biking up slopes for as long I can remember. Now though, as I raced downward a deathly empty road, the wind in my hair-feathers and dust in my eyes, behind a massive pair of shiny aviator shades, I realized I probably should have kept my mouth shut.

The last three days had passed in a blur. From me leaving Valka behind the moment I got up, all the way to now steadily coasting along on my way home. My great plan of hijacking one of my uncle’s cars had completely failed, since apparently car batteries had this shite’ habit of dying when not used for a month.

It was alright though! I was resourceful! At least, that's how I always saw myself…

Seeing how I didn’t have any actual vehicles and was way too small to steal my cousin’s bike I had settled on the next best thing: a goddamn shopping cart. Granted, it took me a couple of tries that ended up with me in a ditch, leaving my hands and face scratched up to fuck and limping, with all my precious cargo in the damn dirt, but eventually I managed to figure out a way to make it drivable.

Two brooms tied to the sides as brakes/steering wheels had turned the rickety bastard into something actually useful. I had reawakened all my mad skilz’ of sledding I had acquired in my youth and only a few hours later was well on my way to the capital.

Thankfully Bella was fine even after all those crash related endeavors as she had decided to run along my cart instead of sitting in it which was good for her. It also made me realize I was more of a complete moron than an untrained mutt, but whatever.

Thankfully all those crashes knocked my noggin’ around enough to give me a few ideas. The main one was the fact that I had to tie my shit down. Like, really, really well because it went  _fucking everywhere_  whenever I hit a bump. So did I.

Despite the fact that I had to leave most of my haul back at our summer-home, seeing how I could only (barely) control one cart at a time, I still managed to pack a fair bit of extra stuff in three backpacks and strap them to the sides and back of the cart. Those mostly contained food and other things, like blankets and rope and paper and some clothes I’d nabbed from the cheap hand-me-down store back at Valka, so I wasn’t too worried about mushing them if I tipped over again. Except for the backpack full of ramen… That shit was precious.

The rest of my supplies were neatly packed in the cart and tied down in layers with bed sheets and ropes. I had acquired a sort of Tetris-sense over the past few years when traveling between our two properties a bazillion times each summer, which basically gave me the ability to stack a fuckton of things in a space no normal human could ever put all of them. It was crazy, the random shit you picked up over the years. I also had this horrible urge to hoard plastic bags in another, larger, plastic bag for no reason other than the deepest recess of my mind whispering that I might need them some day.

And finally, my insane caravan that made me feel like some strange, new-age Oregon Trail style settler was topped off my two large pillows I had gotten from I don’t even remember where, as twin thrones atop an endless ocean of loot for myself and Bella.

No one said I couldn’t have fun with the Apocalypse.

A rather unnerving thing about Bella during the entire trip was the fact that she was insane amounts of calm, even when I knew for a fact she barked like a nutjob at any living soul or car that went within ten meters of her before everyone had vanished. Now, though, she was very well behaved and never wandered off even when I ran around like crazy through all the cities we passed on our way hoping to find any other survivors... of which there were none.

Whenever we sped down the highways (and I didn’t have to haul ass uphill) she just sat there, beside me on her pillow and didn’t flip out even when I would have. The only way I knew she wasn't some sort of demon wearing her skin was the fact that she let her tongue hang out and flop around when the wind blew in our faces.

The wheels of the shopping cart squeaked and rattled as I spotted the curve of the highway by the bridge that signaled only thirty more kilometers to go until I could see the concrete monoliths of my birthplace.

Approaching the curve of the road I grabbed my two ‘steering wheels’ and pulled back. Braking was a loud and nerve-wracking process as the filed-down nubs of the brooms loudly scraped against the road, but eventually we slowed down to manageable speeds. Pulling the ‘brake’ on the opposite side to the one I wanted to turn to I managed to ease into a nice angle just as we rode onto the bridge, the terrain evening out and slowing our descent.

Just like tobogganing.

We were almost off the other end of the bridge when the shopping cart rattled to a stop. I lowered the two brooms and anchored us in place. My limbs were still a bit jittery from the bumpy ride so of course I almost rammed my beak into the ground while getting out. Bella happily wagged her tail at me as she stood up in her seat, her little black eyes staring into my red ones.

“ _Yeah, yeah, fucking graceful, I know,_ ” I snarked with an eye roll. Pushing my giant sunglasses up to my forehead I walked up the front of the cart.

At the moment I was wearing my favorite dark blue, rain-proof autumn jacket. The unfortunate thing about it was that it pressed my wings against my back it made it a bit hard to move, especially my front legs (arms?) but other than that it was perfect for the chilly weather that had accompanied me in my trip. At least it wasn’t raining.

My back legs were draped in bright purple and pink little kid shoes so I didn’t cut up the pads of my lion-feet. From my palms halfway up to my elbows were draped in mutilated wool socks that I had made into gloves for the same reason. My crappy, two-euro headphones wormed their way out of my thick feathers hiding my ear-holes to the banged-up old Walkman I kept in my right pocket. The music I had been blasting the entire way was now off.

    

Knots had never been my strong suit and when I had to untangle and re-tangle them twenty times a day I was just about to shred the entire length of rope with my sharp-as-shit fingertips. Thankfully I resisted and managed to undo the sort of harness-thingy-ma-bobber from the twine that had kept it bound to the front of the cart and slipped it around my neck.

It was made from a hoop of rope that was generously dressed and bulked up with hand-me-down t-shirts and it got the job done of turning me into a damn mule. Also it dug into my throat real bad but it was way better than nothing. I took a few cautious steps forward until the cords went taut and looked back at Bella. The scraggly white mutt had gotten herself comfy laying down on our pillow thrones and glanced up at me. Never before would I have believed eye contact with a dog would be uncomfortable but here I was.

Shaking my head I gave the cart a sharp tug and began walking, ignoring the slight jolts of pain in my front left ankle-slash-wrist. The twin broom-‘brakes’ scraped against the ground but without me pushing down on them they really didn’t do much to slow me down. Finally off the bridge, I stopped and granted myself a moment to look to my right to a place that had always been a highlight of our trips.

_Rāmkalni_ could be described as a pit stop once you made your way out of the farthest reaches of Riga. Shops and attractions and a diner; this place filled my heart with a strange sense of nostalgia. Ever since I could remember my family would stop here and take a ride down the dry bobsled track and I recalled each trip with fondness.

With downcast eyes I dragged my cart into the large parking lot hugging the side of the highway just by the bridge. Cars with their batteries long dead and ignition keys gone sat unmoving, taunting me with their presence. I stopped just parallel to a slightly raised, dark wood deck with four, little three-step-stairs leading up to it from the lot. There stood three shops that once upon a time sold overpriced and overrated ‘eco’ snacks. Now their grand windows were dark, covered in dirt and dust kicked up by the rain and the sharp wind sweeping its way through the nearby riverbed.

I unhitched myself from my caravan and then lifted Bella out of it. The second I set her down she dashed off to god knows where and I just shrugged. It’s not like we could get lost or anything. I moved up the steps and the deck creaked under my weight. A sound I had never noticed thanks to the chatter of people and the roar of cars, both speeding by and sitting around.

Now there was only silence.

I peered through the marred window of one of the shops but aside from some shelves and some of those floor-fridges I couldn’t see anything. A quick hop back to my cart and a moment later I was pushing the glass door of the shop open and shining in a giant-ass flashlight.

For a moment it felt like something straight out of a horror movie or something. As I moved between the perfectly untouched shelves I managed to kick up an entire storm of dust. How long had it been since anyone set foot here? It was only a month since we had driven by, yet it felt like humanity had been gone for decades.

I shined my light on one of the shelves. On it sat an entire collection of different jammy, fruity, sour… y… snacks. I remembered always seeing these exact ones at like, every single fair or any sort of festival I’d ever gone to. And I’d gone to a lot of those.

I wasted a few more moments just staring at the shelf's contents, reminiscing, before snapping out of it. Running back to the front of the shop I grabbed a random woven basket and shoved everything on the shelf into it. No point in letting any of this go to waste, right?

I did another round through the store, holding the basket in one hand and the flashlight in my mouth. I grabbed some more choice snacks, at least the ones that still had some shelf life in them and ones I could actually reach with my severely reduced height, before exiting that dreary old place. I dropped the basket by my ‘vehicle’ and shoved the flashlight into my pocket before setting out again.

The sun was going down and as much as I reassured myself I was alone it was always still pretty scary being out at night. Despite the fact that I had fingertips that could rip through pretty much anything with ease I…

I shook my head again. I really, really didn’t need to psyche myself up like that. I still had a pretty long way to go, even if I’d made some seriously record time for a griffon with a fucking shopping cart. Still, I felt like I should explore a bit if nothing else than pure nostalgia.

Wait, no. What the fuck was I on about? Nostalgia? For what? Humanity?!

…

Yes…

Fuck.

With another shake of my head I set down a path towards the bobsledding track.

‘Click-clack’ went my front claws against the wooden walkway. The trail led around the giant restaurant that hugged the parking lot; like the shops did. In the humungous building’s shadow a small creek bubbled beside me, leading down the side of the hill and disappearing under a tiny bridge.

I passed two kayaks and a boat sitting ashore at the bottom of the walkway and paused to look at the sunlight dancing across the waters I had just crossed, visible through the scant few trees. I dragged myself towards a small bridge that stretched over the tiny creek, the place where it melded into the river. I propped myself on my back legs and leaned against the thick wooden railings. I barely even reached but it didn’t stop me from placing my arms atop the rail and burying my face against them as I blankly gazed across the glittering waters.

_Gauja_ : the longest river in the county.

A river shrouded in old tales and memories. One that ran by my childhood home. One that marked the place of my father’s life work…

One that reminded me of a legacy that should have been mine…

No.

_Stop it._

I had no time for this… this  _stupidness_. I had cried myself out enough beforehand. I had better things to focus on. Important things…

_Just don’t think about it._

Still… there was something…

I spent a few more moments watching the sun shimmer amongst the waves before I turned away. With an exhale I lowered myself back to all fours and proceeded forward through the resort. A sharp right straight off the bridge and past the picnic area. ‘Round the stump of the giant, fallen tree I once played on. Up the stars that had been rebuilt long after I had skinned my knee on them. Past the ticket booth that had eaten up more money that I could count. Through the maze that led the line to the rodel tracks.

A tug on the breaks of one of the contraptions sent it sliding down towards the long dead pulley that once upon a time dragged it up towards the peak of the hill. With a groan of the sled it began moving upwards.

With a curse my legs kept slipping on the metal track. With a grunt I continued pushing it upwards. With a gust of wind the clouds blackened what was left of the dying sunlight. With a squeak the unused sled protested. With sweat pouring down my face I crested the hill.

With a pause I stared down at the track before me. With a sad smile I clambered into the dirty dry bobsled. With a jerk it moved forward.

With a whoosh the wind whipped in my ears.

With a burst of ecstasy I forgot I wasn’t human anymore.

With a shout of joy I rounded a sharp corner.

With a rattle I sped down memory lane, again and again I felt those sunny days of years gone past play through my mind.

With wetness around my eyes my descent slowed until I came to a stop at the end of the track.

With a jerk the sled stopped and the empty word came back to me.

With a happy yelp Bella welcomed me back.

With the final rays of sun vanishing beyond the horizon and bathing the word in pale starlight my long trip caught up to me.

With a yawn I made my way back to the dusty store to lay down for a rest.

With a wag of her tail Bella never left me.

_No one said I couldn’t have fun with the Apocalypse._

 

 

**o.O.o**


	3. Dead Rising Style

Next morning found me on my way again. The weather was nice, sun beaming down on me, only occasionally blocked by a stray cloud that drifted across the vast expanse of blue above.

I had always been a heavy sleeper. That is to say, if I got the chance I tended to sleep to like two in the afternoon. On my trip so far it hadn’t served me that well since by the time I finally got my ass in gear the sun had already been up for hours. Well, at least it gave the weather a chance to warm up a bit before I got walking.

One could probably insert some joke about ‘sleeping through the apocalypse’ but right now I wasn’t laughing.

After  _Rāmkalni_ I had made decent pace. The terrain evened out after the bridges that merged the two main highways of this side of the county so it wasn’t the best for cart-racing. Still, I managed to get a few nice slopes along the way that sped up my progress significantly so there was that.

Really, the strangest thing about traveling through the same roads I had crossed again and again for  _literally_ my entire life was the stillness. There were no cars racing past our banged up old Mazda, no jerks going two hundred kilometers an hour on a ninety highway, no dogs sticking their faces out windows. Well... unless you counted Bella whenever we rode downhill.

The roadwork that always seemed to be happening didn’t slow us down much and besides singing a bit as we passed the container-box-house things I didn’t even bother slowing down or checking any of them. I did however check the three roadside shops/inns that I passed, but was met only with disappointment. At this point I doubted I’d ever even find a single living soul again.

Don’t you dare let me down, Riga.

Time passed, sun went down, shit got dark, but I was in the home stretch so I wasn’t about to give up so close. At some point I scotch taped one of my flashlights to the side of my harness-thing as a sort of pseudo-headlight and another one to the side of my cart. As good as my night vision had become I didn’t entirely trust it.

The entire way the wind kept howling in my ears, making both myself and Bella shiver. I took pity on the poor thing and wrapped her up in one of the bed sheets I had with me before continuing on. There was nothing more I wanted than to just bundle up in a blanket and pillows and sleep but I had chosen the stupid route and I was going to stick with it.

After about five kilometers of a straight road hugged by a forest on one side and old post-WW2 abandoned (or possibly still working) factories on the other, a vast parking lot opened up to my left. Bathed in moonlight the monolithic mall stood against the night sky. I couldn’t keep the grin off my face as I sped up through the car-filled lots and to the main entrance I knew oh-so well.

I unhitched myself and lowered Bella out of the shopping cart before walking to the huge glass doors marking the entrance to my own personal Bed & Breakfast for the near future.

I wormed my claws between the rubbers of the sliding doors and pried both sets open enough for me to push my cart through. The darkness that shrouded every inch of this once bright and people-filled pace made me as uneasy as ever so me being the absolute smartass that I was, I taped my flashlight to my shoulder.

Genius.

Once I had a bit of light and both Bella and I weren’t shivering from the icy wind anymore the exploration could begin.

My first stop whenever I came all the way out here had always been the electronics store just up the escalator (now stairs) and a few paces right around the bend. The second I saw my light glint off all those wonderful, untouched boxes of Xbox and DS and PC and PS4 games I swear to god I got the biggest griffon-lady-boner ever.

When all those heavenly things were back safely with the rest of my stuff I mostly just walked around a bit. Occasionally the stench of rot would waft up to me but I ignored it. Without light there wasn’t really much to see especially since most of the stuff here were just clothes shops and I didn’t feel like going to the A or B wings and most likely getting lost in the dark along the way.

Eventually I looped back around near the entrance on the first floor and I stopped by the huge Jysk that was there. Just thinking about all that furniture and garden accessories and beds and mattresses and pillows and blankets called out to me like a whale song or something as poetic as that. With a loud yawn I made my way into the store's furthest corner where I knew the display beds sat.

I picked out the nicest one and began hauling stacks and stacks of bedding to it until I had a literal mountain atop it. On a rather childish whim I grabbed some ropes and whatnots around the store and strung them up above the display mattress before throwing a bed sheet over them making myself a nice little tent. Smiling from a job well done I took off my jacket and laid it down on the foot of the bed with the flashlight close and pointing outwards. Finally I could settle in.

  

 

  I bundled myself up in the blankets, scooting deeper into my ‘tent’ until I was sure the Dark couldn’t get me and I could finally relax. Pulling the pillows closer I sunk into their fluffiness and closed my eyes, letting the exhaustion of the day melt off me. I faintly felt Bella snuggle closer to me, her breath the only indication of the passage of time as I drifted my way into nothingness.

When I awoke the next (presumably) morning I felt more refreshed than I had once on my entire trip. That was a real, fancy mattress’d bed for ya’.

Tangled in my mountain of pillows and blankets I stretched and shifted until I freed the front half of my body. My fumbling around must’ve woken Bella because I was suddenly met with a face full of fur and eyeful of tongue. When I finally managed to get her off of me, with about as much swearing as usual, I could start the final leg of my journey.

After some morning shopping, of course.

With the flashlight still scotch taped to my shoulder I made my way back to the front of the mall. I checked to see if my cart was still there and it was as undisturbed as ever. Really, I didn’t know which of the two possibilities would have been worse. (And pants-shittingly-terrifying (although that analogy didn’t work as well anymore since I didn’t have pants))

Protruding from the side of the main mall complex lay one of the biggest superstores on this side of the city. Huge windows letting the pale daylight pour through stretched three stories high and at least a block out. Shrouded in darkness, the depths that even the light couldn’t reach lay a world full of everything any living soul could ever want.

Basically it was a Baltics equivalent of Wal-Mart.

And I was gonna’ raid it.

I grabbed one of the shopping carts left to the wayside by the entrance and with me on my back legs and my front claws wrapped around the bar I entered a shoplifter’s paradise.

I honestly don’t know how long I spent there just running down the aisles picking out random assortments of stuff. If it hadn’t been for the ‘End of the World’ this would have been the best day of my life.

Fancy headphones and a variety of toys went into my cart like there was no tomorrow. By the time got to the rotting fruit and spoiled dairy and pungent meat aisles I had long since gotten used to the stench. Cereals and hard cheeses were thrown into cardboard boxes I had been smart enough to grab by the entrance as I rode the cart past the long expired sushis’ and cooked chicken legs. When I made into the bread and cake corner I nabbed every box of chocolate cookies I could (after testing and tasting one to make sure of course) before riding down towards the grains. Rice, spaghetti and hot sauce went into the cart next and I giggled with glee as I slid to a stop by the candy aisle. From all the endless variety of chocolate I could pick I went with the Milka’s while also loading up with sour Skittles and Haribo Jellies.

I was about to head out when my eye caught the alcohol aisle in the faint gleam of my flashlight. Stopping my cart I walked my way to the shelves stacked with fancy amber liquids and a mischievous part of me almost choked on glee. I couldn’t help but grin as I browsed my way through this forbidden fruit, picking out any alcohol that seemed familiar or sounded at least vaguely interesting. I dint find any Jack Daniel’s, which was a shame but I nabbed three whole bottles of Captain Morgan’s rum along with a minimum of twelve different flavors and kinds of beer.

Eventually my cart was loaded up to the brim and I was getting tired just by pushing it so I figured I’d call it quits. As I was about to maneuver my way out past the long since melted ice cream freezers and through checkout lines I saw something shift in the corner of my greatly improved field of view. I’ll admit, I screeched like a little bitch and the only thing that kept me from bolting was a familiar yap and Bella slunk out of the shadows, a rawhide bone the size of her leg in her mouth.

Of course I cursed her out for scaring me and afterwards grabbed a few boxes of dog treats from the pet corner before  _finally_ leaving. A quick check outside and I came to the conclusion that it was already midday and if I was going to get somewhere I should get my ass in gear, pronto.

Properly packing my newest haul and attaching the second shopping cart to the first one I set off, Bella by my side and caravan rattling behind me on my way home.

The trip towards the center of the city was a pretty easy one, so easy in fact I had my lunch while walking which wasn’t actually as pleasant as it sounded when one was a quadruped. The terrain was level and the red bike lane I traveled was pretty decently maintained so I didn't have much problems. The entire way there I kept blasting any and all [road songs](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TSwOoZDDmWM&ab_channel=TheLyricsMusicMaker) I had on my Walkman and singing along as loud as I could. Part of me justified it as ‘ _maybe someone will hear me_ ’ and the other part went ‘ _fuck it, I just really feel like shouting right now_ ’. So I did.

By the time I made it to the railroad bridge so close to home I could almost smell the stale air of my room, the sun was mercilessly beating down on me. I had given up my jacket all together and just thrown it into my cart. The wind breezing past my face and through my wings sent an entire array of strange sensations through my brain. Most of them were pleasant.

Down the small side road I trudged, past the cemetery-turned-park that was my childhood playground, yet I grew more and more uneasy. My legs trembled ever so slightly and my wings twitched in the breeze.

Finally, past the trees the very corner of our apartment complex came into view. I swallowed a lump in my throat before switching off my music. Standing at the t-intersection, tall homes lining the side of the road, I had to bring myself to move.

There was just something about going home like…  _this…_

Maybe it was just a part of me that still hadn’t given up on this being… not real.

That the only way this fate of mine, this insane journey and god knows what else to come would be sealed forever in reality, was going home. Passing through those doors, seeing that familiar hardwood floor and those white and salmon colored walls would make all of this so much more real…

What was I to do?

 

_Don’t think about it._

 

So I didn’t.

Since the power was out there was no point in me even trying any of the brand new metal doors with fancy, glowing keypad locks the Apartment Ownership Society my mom was a part of had installed this spring so I went around back to the lot where we all parked our cars. The asphalt was a mess, but then again it had been like that since I was a kid. Finding my keys was the hard part but after fishing out my laptop/shoulder bag out of the mountain of stuff I had getting in was trivial.

“ _Bella, stay_.” I commanded and I think the mutt might’ve actually listened, at least judging by the way she thumped her butt on the little patch of overgrown grass by one of my neighbors windows when she sat down. The door itself, heavy, brown, a bastard, was a little hard to push open with my tiny stature but I eventually stepped inside the concrete lined strainwell. Six steps up and I was on the first floor landing right at a simple wood door with a fancy little 9 at the topmost center.

My guts gave a little lurch but nevertheless I pushed my keys into the lock and after undoing the two separate doors I stepped back home.

It was surreal.

Despite the dust and the heavy, stale air it was like this pace had frozen in time. Gently dropping my bag on the carpet in the foyer I almost drunkenly stumbled the five steps needed to the right and into my bedroom.

Just as I had left it, my bed was a mess I never intended to clean up. Clothes on the floor, papers and brushes and oil paints scattered amongst my desk, money and lip balms and old checks I needed to throw out were on my bedside table.

Nothing had changed.

I was home.

 

It wasn’t supposed to be like this…

I breathed hard, dust going down my throat but I didn’t care.

_It wasn’t supposed to be like this…_

This was the part where I was supposed to wake up.

A lesson learned. I was supposed to tell Mom I loved her, I was supposed to start helping around the house again, study better, act nicer…

 

 

 

_**I WAS SUPPOSED TO WAKE UP!** _

My leathery knuckle connected with the door making the glass in its frames loudly rattle. I let out a shaky breath, biting back tears as they threatened to push out from my once gray eyes. Dust stirred around me and through this tomb of a life I once had.

Posters still covered the walls and books filled my shelves. Boxes of toys I was too old to play with sat atop the closets.

But this wasn’t home anymore.

This wasn’t right anymore.

A sharp inhale and I opened my bright red eyes again. The sun filtering through the closed curtains gave me enough light to see all the treasures that lay here. The graphics tablet and it’s accessories I grabbed off the desk wasn’t the same one I had spent half my savings on. The survival book I had loved and adored so much I knew it from heart wasn’t the one I had spent countless nights reading with a flashlight. The Nintendo DS and all its games on the bottom shelf of the cupboard had never been the one I had gotten all the way from America instead of a PSP. The three binders full of four years’ worth of pencil drawings sitting in the corner were never made by my hand. Photo albums I had never gotten for my birthdays and didn’t show the smiling faces of my tiny family went with the rest. The guitar we’d gotten for cheap, sitting atop the closet I could barely reach as human wasn’t the one I had spent my summer trying to learn. The snacks and soft drinks in a hiding place between the bed and the wall that I had not once in my life used went into the same pile as all the things that were never mine. The pillow I buried my face and beak into and screamed for the life I could never have back wasn’t the best pillow I had ever slept on since getting it at age eight.

 

 

When I stumbled back out into the parking space, shrouded from all sides by six-story-tall homes, the small lot filled with dead cars, could I finally breathe. Bella looked at me with wary eyes, not even wagging her tail. What was her problem? All I’d done was find some  _keys that were never mine_  with an address attached and had simply liberated that  _ownerless_ apartment of some rather nice books and tech that I had… And a wonderful, massive, fluffy pillow that was nearly the size of me, which was abso-fucking-lutely amazing.

I made sure I carefully packed my laptop (and now with an added graphics tablet) bag between some stuff that would cushion it as best as possible and tried stuffing the things I’d nabbed into the carts. Eventually I was satisfied and slipped the harness around my neck before setting off.

Bella’s behavior was a little worrying but I made sure to remember to give her some doggie treats when we made it to the Old City; aka my main goal this entire goddamn trip.

What was I even doing in this part of town anyway? Meh, doesn’t matter.

_UP, UP AND AWAY!_

…

Or at least forward in a rather slow and grueling pace… that works too…

I traveled far and long down all my old trails really wishing for a bike right about now. Eventually, after stopping by the Laima chocolate factory’s store a few tram stops from home and doing you can probably guess what, I found myself by the Dailes Theater house. I paused to look at the poster advertising some play I could never bother myself about before finally looking back at Bella who had been trailing me (and not walking beside me as she had most of the trip). She seemed a bit calmer now which was good, though I really had to figure out what had spooked her. Probably me leaving her behind a locked door had something to do with that, but she would eventually have to learn I wasn’t going to take her absolutely  _everywhere_ with me. Geez…

I resumed my rattling down the main road leading to the once thriving heart of Riga. It was a fair few blocks away but I still had plenty of daylight to burn so I was at ease with the world.

About a third of the way there I had to stop and look around because I could have sworn I kept hearing something. It wasn’t the wind whipping through the empty streets, that sound I had gotten used to. It wasn’t my MP4 either since I turned it off to save battery. With an involuntary shiver, making me give in and put my jacket back on I continued.

As the heart of the city grew closer and closer so did that strange noise. At this point I was getting seriously worried. That is, until halfway to the Old Town and my goal, something in my head clicked.

 

Music.

 

I was hearing music.

 


End file.
